More Americans than ever are getting shot, but the murder rate is falling thanks to better health care

This story from a week ago made newly salient thanks to the Connecticut school shooting is, among other things, a great illustration of the principle that you don't want to worrytoo much about rising health care spending. It turns out that while the murder rate has been falling for 20 years, over the past ten years the number of people getting shot has actually increased. The murder rate continues to fall because if you get shot and then the emergency room staff saves your life, there's no murder. And emergency medicine has gotten much better. A related development in terms of improved battlefield medicine is one reason that many fewer American soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan than lost their lives in Vietnam.

This story from a week ago made newly salient thanks to the Connecticut school shooting is, among other things, a great illustration of the principle that you don't want to worrytoo much about rising health care spending. It turns out that while the murder rate has been falling for 20 years, over the past ten years the number of people getting shot has actually increased. The murder rate continues to fall because if you get shot and then the emergency room staff saves your life, there's no murder. And emergency medicine has gotten much better. A related development in terms of improved battlefield medicine is one reason that many fewer American soldiers died in Iraq and Afghanistan than lost their lives in Vietnam.